Durant bolted Team USA because of George injury

Kevin Durant is currently sidelined after having foot surgery but he didn't want to play for Team USA this past summer after seeing Paul George's injury.

Kevin Durant is currently sidelined after having foot surgery but he didn't want to play for Team USA this past summer after seeing Paul George's injury. (Steve Dykes, Getty Images)

The Sports Xchange

Paul George injury kept Kevin Durant from playing for Team USA

It was fear, not fatigue, that pushed Kevin Durant away from Team USA this summer.

Durant, currently sidelined with a foot injury, reveals in his upcoming HBO documentary that watching as Indiana Pacers forward Paul George fell hard into a basket support at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, fracturing his right leg, he no longer felt comfortable as part of Team USA.

"It took everything out of me seeing that," Durant is shown telling friend Randy Williams and a Nike executive at his camp of the George injury. "Everything I had to play for Team USA, that injury stripped it away from me."

The severity of the injury and a long rehabilitation process will likely cost George the entire 2014-15 NBA season. Durant is a free agent at the end of the 2015-16 season.

In the documentary, Durant reveals his thoughts.

"When you see something like that, so gruesome, in front of you, of course you're going to think, 'This could happen to me,'" he said.

The exhibition game was halted after George's injury and sparked a national debate whether NBA stars, making millions of dollars, should play for the national team and risk injury.

"They don't deserve any criticism for this," George said of USA Basketball in August. "I would love to be a part of USA Basketball in 2016."

Durant left the team but said at the time it was because of fatigue and not anything to do with George's accident.

Durant is also shown talking to coach Mike Krzyzewski and appears visibly shaken when he says softly "I feel like I'm letting somebody down and I hate that feeling."